Man finds staples in dog treat

With all the food, toy and pet food recalls in the news lately, Randy L. Wile is conscientious about what he buys.

But the Seymour resident was still caught off guard by what he found in one of the dog bone treats he often gives his golden retriever, Ryza.

“I was playing tug-of-war with the dog and I felt something sharp poke my skin,” Wile said. “When I looked a little closer, I couldn’t believe what I saw.”

Apparently baked into the Milk-Bone dog treat were two staples, one of which was protruding from it.

“As an animal lover, I felt like I needed to not only tell somebody about it to get the word out, but to show them so that they didn’t think I was making it up,” he said.

“If you look at them (the dog treats) you can tell there’s no way I could have put those staples in there myself.”

The first thing Wile said he wondered was where the Milk-Bones were made.

“You’ve been hearing about all these product recalls from China, so that’s where I thought they probably came from,” he said.

Wile had purchased two 10-pound boxes of Milk-Bone large dog biscuits, one late last year at Sam’s Club and another recently from Wal-Mart. He said he wasn’t exactly sure which box the dog bone came out of, but he thought it was the more recent one. The product codes for the boxes are 13130-02502 and 79100-92502.

Milk-Bone dog biscuits are distributed by Del Monte Pet Products, a division of Del Monte Foods in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Mary Sestric with Del Monte’s corporate communications office said late last week there were no product recalls for the dog treats at that time.

“We are calling it an isolated incident, because we haven’t received any other calls of that nature,” Sestric said. “But we are still concerned and encourage the pet owner or anyone else who might be in a similar situation to call our consumer hotline.”

That number is (888) 645-5266.

Wile said he did not contact the company first because he didn’t want them to ignore the problem.

“They would have refunded my money or sent me a bunch of coupons,” he said. “I wanted to get it out to the public.”

Del Monte did participate in a voluntary recall of several dog food products last spring, but none of those included Milk-Bone products

“Had Ryza been a smaller dog, it might have done a lot of damage, even killed her,” Wile said. “Who knows if there have been others? I went through the boxes and broke a few of the bones up, but I didn’t see any more.”

Online

-- For information about Milk-Bone products, visit www.Milk-Bone.com.

-- For information on Del-Monte products, visit www.delmonte.com.